The Return of Jack Collier (Chapter Forty-Nine)

The Return of Jack Collier

A Jack Collier Story

By Brett N. Lashuay

Chapter Forty-Nine: She Gave Her Angels

She gave her angels, that summer night

Prince

You ever have one of those days where you find you suddenly understand a character in a book? I mean a character that you previously didn’t empathize with, but then something happens to you and you find that you’re suddenly sitting there thinking that this must be exactly how The Badger must have felt when Toad stole that stupid motor car or whatever.

I found, as I opened the inner door that separated his office from mine that Jack made me understand a character. I understood Trillian in a way I never had before. In Life the Universe and Everything, she keeps trying to engage Zaphod, but he keeps being aloof and depressed. Eventually she walks out on him and I remember being sort of exasperated and I may have even shouted ‘Finally!’ when she just teleported herself the hell out of his life. I couldn’t understand standing by while the guy just let his depression eat him up. And there I was, watching my own version of Zaphod Beeblebrox sitting morose in the center of his greatest success and I wasn’t getting the hell out of there either. Oh Trillian, I misjudged you.

He was sitting at his desk, sunk low in his chair, which is never a good sign. He had that look on his face, like he was trying to bend a spoon in Hyde Park using the power of his mind. I’m not sure he’d left the day before, since he was wearing the same shirt that he’d had on the night before and was there when I’d gotten there. He looked like he wanted to bite something, and there I was, thinking of putting my head in his mouth.

“Can I ask you something?” I asked as I entered his office.

“What?” He asked, sharply but not angrily.

“Why does the money bother you so much?”

“You really want to know?” He sat up straight and half leaned across his desk.

“Yes.” I said. “Why does it do this to you?”

“People with money are fuckers.” He said.

“What?”

“Everyone I’ve ever known, who had anything like money, was a complete and total shit.” He almost snarled as he spoke. “They think their money will buy anything, they think they don’t have to be decent human beings, and most of them are so stupid that you actually feel yourself getting dumber by talking to them.”

“You never had a problem with Liberty.” I said, putting my hands on my hips and tilting my head at him.

“Yes, I did.” He said, leaning his head forward and glaring at me. “Liberty is beautiful, and clever, and selfish. She knows how to get things, giving away whatever seems like it’ll cause her the least trouble. She bought me and sold me when I was a kid. Then, years later, when she needed something again she came and decided to buy me again. You think that car was a thank you? It was a payoff. It was just a more complicated one than a check.”

“So why did you…?” I started, but how do you ask that question?

“Because she fucks like a wild minx.” He said, more bluntly than I wanted to hear really. “Men are not smart, or deep, or spiritual. When you women do your little tricks that excite us, we loose precious brain blood and can’t do no good thinkin’ ‘bout things. We get the idea of hot monkey sex in our heads and our tiny little brains refuse to process anything not connected to the acquisition of that sex.”

“And she has money.” I said. “And people want to be around money.”

“Maybe other people do.” He said. “I’m not smart to begin with, so making me stupid with the idea of sexual gratification takes me down to a level of grunts and growls.”

“What about Char?” I asked. “She’s not a shit is she?”

“Char is sort of a shit when it comes to the money.” He said. “She uses money to get what she wants. She buys her way out of obligations, pays off people when they become tiresome. Char is okay, if you keep her at the right distance, but I wouldn’t want to be twenty-four and in her sights again.”

“What about me then?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest, readying myself for the blow. “Am I a shit?”

“You can be a little selfish sometimes.” He said, raising a palm. “You can be a bit spoiled once in a while.”

“I see.” I’m not sure if I looked like I was about to burst into tears, but I felt like I was. “So I’m a shit too.”

“You aren’t a shit.” He announced.

“Just selfish and spoiled?” I asked.

“Sit down.” He said pointing at the red leather chair.

“I don’t feel like sitting.” I’m afraid something had come up from someplace and I was having a bit of a moment.

“Sit down!” He stood up and shouted so loud that my legs ignored whatever orders my brain was giving about steadfastness and sank into the blue chair. I couldn’t get them to listen, but I could at least disobey a little.

“I’m sitting now master.” I managed to snap at him, putting my feet flat, my knees together and my fists on the arm of the chair so I could avoid the classic position of supplication. “Do you want me to pant like a dog too?”

He walked around the desk, and I was positive that he was going to hit me. I stuck my chin out, because I was going to be damned if I would flinch from his blow. I did close my eyes though, because I didn’t want to see it coming. If I could see it coming, I might flinch. He stood in front of me, and I could hear his breathing as he stood there. His breath came out twice, each time sounding like a bull’s snort.

And then I felt the back of his hand.

However, it was not a well deserved smack that I got. He stroked at my cheek with his knuckles, and then started wiping the tears from my eyes with his thumbs. He held my face in both his hands while he worked, and I could hear a sort of resigned sigh come from him. I felt horrible then, thinking like I had that he intended to beat me.

“You are a little selfish sometimes.” He almost whispered the words to me. “You are a little spoiled once in a while. A little. Once in a while. These are flaws, but they’re your flaws and I love you for them. I am unreasonable and difficult to talk to because of my propensity towards sullen silences and my paranoid need to never tell anyone anything. These are flaws and they’re my flaws, but I can make you come so hard that you need to use your fingers to uncurl your toes so you forgive me for them.”

“That’s not why…” I started to say, and then he did slap me.

“Man is talking.” He didn’t slap hard, not excessive. It was the sort of open handed slap he’d learned to give as part of our play time, just like the phrase. I suppose if you don’t get that sort of play then there isn’t a good way to explain why it made me feel so good.

“Sorry. I just sometimes think…” I was cut off when he gave me an almost identical slap across the other cheek.

“When spoken to.” He told me and then leaned back.

I know he’s not really comfortable with this, but he knows I like it. If I didn’t explain to him my need for correction, he would never even raise his voice, he never did in the past. He’s only started since we started again, after I told him about my college level discoveries.

“Yes Jack.” I said, putting my hands in my lap like a good girl. “Sorry Jack. I deserve another one Jack.”

“I’ll decide when you need hit.” He told me, which is just mean. Getting me started like that and then saying that was enough.

“Yes Jack.” I tried not to sound disappointed, but I was just starting to enjoy that.

“What the hell am I going to do with you?”

“Put me over your knee and tan my hide, Jack?” I bit my lower lip and flashed my eyes at him. He likes that, it makes him open to suggestion. “Tie me to the bed post and flog me?”

“While it would pass the time, that’s not exactly what I was referring to.” He said.

“I know Jack.” I said.

“You want me to answer that dangling question, don’t you?” He asked.

“Not just me.” I said. “Jill and Alice deserve and answer to it, so does Karen for that matter. You should really have some kind of decision for them this weekend.”

“You’ve been arranging things, haven’t you?”

“Maybe.” I said, and felt an impish little smile crawling on my lips.

“You have an opinion?” He folded his arms across his manly chest and glared at me.

“I like Alice.” I said. “Jill is okay, but she’s got a lot of growing up to do. You know how I feel about Karen.”

“That ain’t no kind of answer and you know it.” He said.

“I can’t pick for you.” I said.

“Do you think we could do it?” He asked. “Could you manage it?”

“Can you?” I asked. “That’s really the important question.”

“I asked you first.”

“You know I can.” I said. “Now, can you?”

“I’m still thinking about it.” He said. “When have you arranged for Alice to get here?”

“She’ll get her Friday.” I told him. “Karen and Jill have cleared their schedules so we can all line up in front of you in silky lingerie, and try to entice you.”

“I see.” He said. “You know what?”

“What Jack?”

“I’m going to take your suggestion.”

“Which one Jack?” I asked, I couldn’t remember making one.

“When we get home, I am going to tie you to the bed post and we’re going to see how bright of a red your ass can get.”

“Are we Jack?”

“Yes.” He said. “I think you’ve got it coming.”

“Am I being punished or rewarded Jack?” I asked, leaning forward so he could look down my shirt.

“Well, we’ll see how you feel about it after it happens.” He said.

“You’re going to have to say something definite.” I told him.

“Fine, you’re being punished.” He said.

“Not just about that.”

“Yeah.” He said sitting down in the red leather chair and taking my hand in his.

“You really don’t have to choose between us you know.” I told him. “It doesn’t have to be one or the other. You can pick everything and go with it.”

“You’re right.” He said and seized his hand around my wrist. He yanked me across to him and with a pretty quick motion had me across his knee with my fanny aimed in the air. I cried again, my mascara ran a lot, but it was just from the pain of being spanked. He made good on his word when we got home too. That’s why I’ve got to type this while standing. That’s a good pain though, I like this pain. It makes it hard to sit, but it makes me happy in my heart.